Military Training at Wuhan International Trade University

When freshmen start University, they have to spend between 2 weeks and 1 month doing some kind of military training. All are dressed in uniforms and have to walk, sit, listen and do exercices together under the authority of militaries coming to the University for the occasion. They all wake up very early and have curfew at 10.30pm...
It's always impressive to see such a huge crowd in military uniforms...

Drinking China 2 *Bodies of evidence

Drinking China 2

Well, here we are, a week later and still no internet at home...
I am now taking a few minutes at work to try to post some message on the blog, and it's time to talk about...
Soft drinks!
As said previously, you really have a huge panel to chose from.
Cold coffes, Cold teas (nothing to do with the chemical and over sugary Nesteas and Ice Teas we've got back home), jelly things, funny fruit juices (tried yesterday Strawberry-Tomato) and so many more things I wouldn't dare give a name.
Although many are chemically charged, many are also really delicious.I always said that I had never found a soft drink that I really loved (The now deceased Liptonic had come close) but here I am really delighted.
Some cold fruit flavoured milks are really perfect and healthy.
Then, there's also fresh Coconut juice, peanut milk and many more weird natural energetic drinks that will keep your palate excited for months.
Amongst the drinks worth mentioning because they look funny, taste funny (when not simply awful), you'll find very colourful drinks in which swim small balls and pieces of fruit.
Well, you think they're pieces of fruit before you've tried them...Because they seem actually completely chemical. See the two pictures.
****
What else can I say?
The military training for the freshmen is over in our University but still going on in many city University, and that's always quite impressive to see so many people in uniform...
Lucy is still haunting our window, looking after her "Ootheque", which, according to a page I found on the net, will blossom and give birth to about 60 baby praying mantis...
That is an extremely delightful thought when you think of how much insectophobiac I am and how big the holes are between the window and the bedroom. Anyway, I am not planning to kick her out of our balcony because:
A-I've always said that 'inside the house belongs to me, but the outside-including the balcony-belongs to mother nature and all of her creatures.
B-I started to really adopt Lucy, I even happen to think i would miss her if she left...
C-I am far too scared to kick her out.

Ok, what more? i want to thank everyone for the comments and mails, I am very sorry I don't answer very fast but that doesn't mean I forget you. Actually, that blog is for you too.
See you soon, Orel

Drinking China

Well, we meant to write yesterday but were too tired to...
I came home at ten and I was so knackered that I just ate and went to bed.
And today, i've got my afternoon free and i was thinking of writing for the blog but the internet's been cut off and it should be so for another week...
So if you get this message, that means I managed to send it from the office.Today I am going to give you a little taste of China...
Giving you a small sample of the funny things we've found in supermarkets here.We'll start with the drinks!
China is like no other place I've been too on that level. I already tried a lot of funny asian drinks before coming here, herbal jelly drinks, exotic fruit drinks and all, but there is such a wider variety here that you could not try everything even if managed to survive the experience after a month.Our first mistake was to be fooled by the meaning of the words they use.
When a chinese says (or writes) Beer or Wine, that doesn't actually mean it IS beer or wine.
For example, they've got Lychee beers which are no beers, and so do they with orange and pineapple beers. All of these are fuzzy drinks but I seriously doubt they've got any element that could classify them in the beer category.
Then, although the ones i quoted so far are not frankly good nor bad, we have to give a special prize for the BLUE DIAMOND beer, that's got a lemon pictured on it but actually tastes slightly of lychee and is quite a pleasant drink.
On the photograph, only the can on the left is actually a real beer.
We were also surprised by the fact that we saw people drinking alone big beers, even bigger than the usual russian ones...
Units are all messed up here, they use ml but you can't find two bottles with the same quantity: 642, 500, 450, 466m...Their small cans of coke or else are of 345 or 350ml.
But the good thing to say is that their beer are very light in alcohol, from 3 to 4 most of the time, but they don't taste as bland and watery as all these fashionable summer or trendy beers like Brahma or Baltika Colours...
I can't say they're fantastic beers but then again I only tried the casual ones.
You should know that a half liter beer costs about 0,20 cents. Yes. China is a good place to live. : )
About wine: They call wine both the thing WE call wine and the rice alcool and liquors they make.
That means drinking a bottle of wine can mean you're going to taste some chinese wine or roll under the table with some of their 50 degrees wine alcohols...Next post: The soft drinks...
Yes, i even taste those.

Monday 11th of September

Just writing the date in the title reminds me of terrible memories: an ordinary day for us, the gloomiest anniversary for many.
Anyway, that wasn't what I had been thinking of when i decided to write today's post.
It's going to be pretty hard writing everyday because we're really busy with work and really tired after that.
So... Yesterday's been the first day we took the time to go and see some touristic bits. After taking 3-4 buses, we got close to a small taoist temple, which marked our first steps into a taoist building.
We had seen plenty of buddhist Datsans in Buryatia and Mongolia, but the taoist style is really quite different. And the priests we saw there had really long beard and were dressed partly like kung-fu heroes you see in movies.
The weather was grey as most days -pollution is heavy here- so I'm not sure we'll have nice photographs to post but we'll try to do so when we have time.
Then we went to the Yellow Crane Tower, "one of the 40 most interesting places in China", and it was indeed quite impressive and it's a very beautiful site. Unfortunately, we came late and only had two hours to visit it. I would advice any visitor to come around noon, bring a picnic and stay the whole afternoon there. The architecture is a delight and it's very green and pretty.
We felt quite sad when we heard that the Pass for 12 months was only available to chinese citizens. That's bad luck, the entry fee is really expensive: 50 yuan and the Pass is only 60 yuan.
I argued with the lady because they actually had the cruelty to write everything about this Magic Pass in English, forgetting to mention that it was exclusively reserved to Chinese...
Anyway.
When we got home, we noticed that our pet, Lucy the Praying Mantis, was behaving strangely, as if she was going to give birth to a second cocoon. But Now it's been a whole day since then and she's just staying close to her first cocoon and seems much more relaxed than yesterday.
we shou

Introduction

A couple. He is french-she is russian.
We moved two weeks ago to Wuhan, China, where we will be teaching for a year.
With this blog, we intend to share our impressions, feelings and discoveries about Wuhan, China and all things. This is mainly intended for friends and family and might be written in english, russian or french but you are all welcome here and we will always be pleased to read your comments and to get to know new people.
We hope you'll enjoy sharing this experience with us.
Posting soon...
Orelena